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Sandhills Sketches 



BY 

WILLIAMS HAYNES 

Author of ^'Casco Bay Yarns/* etc. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS 
BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS. 



NEW YORK 
D. O. HAYNES & CO. Publishers 






COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY WILLIAMS HAYNES 



TPHIS little book is just what its title implies: pages 
from a note book kept during a winter spent in the 
Piedmont Country of North Carolina, Because the story 
of the Sandhills has not heretofore been told, it has 
seemed worth while to collect them in this form. 

With one exception, the following sketches have been 
published in various magazines, and my thanks are due 
the proprietors of "Travel," "Forecast," ''House and 
Garden,'* and "Outing" for their kind permission to re- 
print material that first appeared in their publications. 

Williams Haynes. 
Northampton, Mass. 




©CI. A 4334 12 
1^ f 



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CONTENTS 

Dodging Winter 5 

"Them Huggins Boys*' 15 

A Sandhills Christmas Carol .... 31 

**Tar Burnin' '' 43 

Some Quail Dogs and Others .... 54 

The Clay Birds 67 

Through a Jungle to the Old South . . 79 



Dodging Winter 

A WINTER vacation is as seductive as 
the opium pipe. Slip away to tlie 
sunny Southland just once during the win- 
ter ; next season you will surely want to do 
it again — one whiff and you are an habitue. 

How drear and dismal snow-bound Janu- 
ary seems! What a torrent of chilly dis- 
comfort is the sleet and slush of March ! The 
golf bag, or the gun case, in the corner by 
the fireplace is a subtle, suggestive tempta- 
tion, and even the cheery open fire itself 
calls up memories of crackling pine knots 
that spluttered and blazed not in deadly 
earnest, so that you should not shiver, but 
lightly and brightly, impregnating the air 
with the pungent frankincense of comrade- 
ship. 

There is a glorious exultation in dodging 
Winter. You cannot really fight on equal 
terms with the old rascal — a steam heater 
is such a pitiful weapon after all — so there 



Sandhills Sketches 

is a keen delight in snapping your fingers 
under Ms frost-bitten nose. When you slip 
out of the freezing grasp of his long, cold 
arms, you have cheated a cruel, inexorable 
Fate. You feel like the hero of a Greek 
tragedy who has gloriously turned the play 
to comedy, and there is a peculiarly delicious 
feeling of freedom. The smelly coolness of 
the mid-summer woods is a respite from the 
burning heat of the city in July ; the ting- 
ling, briny freshness of the wind-swept sea 
rocks is a reprieve — but the southern sun 
in winter gives freely a full pardon to the 
weather prisoner. It is he himself who 
weaves the enticing spell of the winter vaca- 
tion, and the minute you tumble out of the 
Pullman, from whose blackened eaves the 
ghosts of icicles still trickle, you become a 
pagan sun worshipper. 

Some winter vacationists carry their sun 
worshipping to a fanatic extreme. They are 
not at all content to bask in the sun, they 
must go way to Florida or Bermuda to be 
fairly baked. This sun gluttony carries its 
own punishments of lazy lassitude and all 
the risks of a sniffling cold or hacking cough 
when one must, as one always must, return 



Sandhills Sketch 



es 



to the cold North. It is wiser and more 
temperate to slip just far enough into the 
South to find a friendly sun, but not so far 
that he becomes a bore. 

Isn't the ideal winter play-place a country 
where it is warm enough for you to feel the 
sun, so, if you are out-of-doors, you do not 
need muflflers and ear tabs; where you can 
ride or motor, shoot or fish, play golf or 
tennis without a bungling sweater clinging 
to your shoulders and elbows; where you 
can sit under the trees an hour and read a 
favorite book without your fingers being 
numbed to blueness? But don't you like a 
tang of frost in the morning air? Fifteen 
minutes in that air before breakfast is worth 
a whole month of cold baths and setting 
up exercises for starting the day right. In 
such a country too, the nights will be cool 
and refreshing as spring water, and you will 
sleep a sleep more strengthening than the 
most potent tonic in the whole pharma- 
copoeia. 

Such a winter play-place is the Piedmont 
country of the Carolinas, the Sandhills, as 
the natives who "made cotton and corn on 
the clay" of the lowlands contemptuously 



Sandhills Sketches 

cliristeiied them years ago. This was the 
old sea shore of the continent, and the sandy 
soil is even today, after all these geological 
ages, almost as white as a beach. The Sand- 
hills roll away gently, not unlike great 
dunes, and through each little valley trick- 
les a little stream — "branches" the natives 
call them — on whose banks crowd great 
clumps of holly bushes, bluegums, and mag- 
nolias. The dry, sandy soil, like a great 
blotter, keeps the air as dry as cotton, and 
the most soaking rain leaves no puddles or 
mud holes behind it. This, as the Old North 
State's hearty toast proudly proclaims, is 
indeed 

"The land of the long leaf pine, 
The southern land where the sun doth 
shine." 

Even the golfer on the Pinehurst links, 
who is so strictly admonished "to keep his 
eye on the ball," carries away with him the 
pictnTe of the towering long-leaf pines with 
their great, foot-long needles and their giant 
cones. The Aiken motorist, as he bowls 
down the hillsides and rattles over the little 
wooden bridge that spans the branch, can- 
not fail to distinguish out of the whirling 

8 



Sandhills Sketches 

landscape the sandy hilltops ana the green 
thickets along the valley bottoms. The fox 
hunter, since Reynard will surely lay a line 
of scent Vay off the beaten tracks into the 
heart of the pine woods and the magnolia 
lowlands, will know the Sandhills better. 
But the one who tramps over the Sandhills 
behind a brace of bird dogs will know them 
best. Up through the valley, skirting the 
branch — over the hillside and across the 
fallow cotton fields — sl scramble over the 
rail fence and a plunge through the tangle 
of holly bushes and briars all snarled with 
creepers — splash, splash, through the stream 
and up the other side of the hill. He is 
sure to learn the country first hand, and 
he will -meet all sorts of interesting people. 
A lusty negro boy will be perfectly de- 
lighted to stop chopping at the black-jack 
stumps to tell him, "Dere's a whalin* big 
cobey ob birds done feed ober in dat field 
ob cow-peas. Ah hyah 'em whistlin' 'bout 
half an hour 'go." On a level hilltop an 
old darky tar burner will be his willing 
instructor in the mysteries of tar making. 
In a little hollow, miles from the high 
road, he will come suddenly upon a slat- 



Sandhills Sketches 

temly cabin with, a curious cMmney of 
clay and crossed sticks. Here a trio of 
putty faced babies will eye him suspiciously 
from behind the pig sty while their mother, 
a drab, timid woman, gives him a dipper 
of water. 

The quail shooter cannot wander over 
the Sandhills without sooner or later be- 
ing reminded of the post card with the 
picture of the revenue officers and the score 
of captured blockade whisky stills he sent 
off to his particular friend the first night 
he reached his hotel. I remember very well 
la suspicious old fellow, whose curt answers 
and strange advice sent our imaginations 
weaving tales of the moonshiners. 'Way 
back in the hills the dogs found a big covey 
beside a swamp and the birds flushed over 
the hill. We followed them to pick up the 
scattered singles and found two before we 
noticed this old fellow sitting on a stump 
at the edge of the thicket. We called in 
the dogs and walked over to him. He sat 
there, his elbows on his knees, his hands 
clasped in front of him, quite motionless. 
A rusty, single barrelled shotgun, with a 
hammer as big as a clothes hook, rested in 

10 



Sandhills Sketches 

the crook of Ms arm, and between his feet 
sat a thin, black and tan foxhound, with a 
meek, sorrowful expression in her dark 
eyes. Neither man nor dog moved as we 
came up to them. 

"Hello. Is this your land?" I asked. 

He had been peering at us keenly from 
under his heavy brows as we approached, 
but now he dropped his eyes and mumbled 
noncommittally, "Dunno." 

"It isn't posted, is it?" 

"Tain't posted," he replied shortly. 

"Are you finding mauy rabbits?" I 
asked him cheerfully. 

"Ain't huntin' rabbits." 

"'Possums then?" I suggested. 

"Ain't huntin' 'possum." 

"Does your hound point quail?" 

"Nope." 

"Are you running deer? We saw some 
tracks back in the swamp." 

"Ain't huntin' deer." 

"Well, what are you hunting?" 

"Ain't huntin' nawthin'." 

I gave up in despair, and my friend asked 
him very politely, "Do you live hereabouts?" 

"Ovah yondah," he answered without a 

11 



Sandhills Sketches 

sign, so whether his home was north, south, 
east, or west, and whether a hundred yards 
or ten miles away, there was no telling. 

"Are there many birds about here?'' 

^'Dunno,'' he answered shortly. 

"Queen'' had found another bird and was 
pointing beautifully. We went over to her 
and my friend made a fine shot on a hard 
single. We started on and the old man 
yelled after us. We stopped and turned. 
He was hobbling slowly towards us. 

"Is it possible he has found his tongue?" 
I whispered. 

"The age of miracles is past," replied my 
companion. 

"Them birds you-all is huntin'," said the 
old man when he was close beside us, "went 
ovah t'other side o' the swamp." 

"But," protested my friend, "we saw them 
come over the hill and we've found three 
singles already." 

"Eight smart o' 'em circled 'round." 

"Are you sure?" I persisted. 

"Sartin'," he grunted. 

We exchanged glances, both wondering 
whether we were receiving a friendly tip 
from a strange fellow-sportsman or whether 

12 



Sandhills Sketches 

we were being gently warned away from the 
proximity of an illicit whisky still. We 
accepted his advice and recrossed the 
swamp. We found just one lone bird on 
that hillside where he had indicated, that 
**right smart o' 'em'' had flown. 

As we went down the hill on the other 
side my friend asked me in all seriousness, 
"You know something about this Tar Heel 
dialect — would you call one, ^right smart' ?" 

"Would you?" I asked, and we both 
laughed. 

If "the East is East and the West is 
West," so the North is North and the 
South, South. That, if you really know 
the Sandhills, is one of the best charms of 
a winter vacation in that fascinating 
country. It is a very different country 
with different trees and flowers and birds 
and animals. The people too, are different. 
The Sandhill darky is a type quite distinct, 
and the Tar Heel is as fascinating and 
romantic as his cousin up in the Cumber- 
land Mountains. You will not find these 
things at your hotel nor in the shops at 
Southern Pines, or Hamlet, or Aberdeen. 
You will not find them on the golf links 

13 



Sandhills Sketches 

or the tennis courts. You are very apt to 
ride over them on horseback, and' you will 
surely pass them in a motor; but they are 
there, and over and above the good sport 
of winter play, they add a great deal to 
the fun of dodging winter in the Sandhills. 



14 



"Them Huggins Boys'* 

EVERYBODY in the SandMUs, it 
seemed, knew "them Huggins boys", 
and nobody had a good word to say for 
them. Everywhere I went I heard of them, 
and everything that I heard was ill. 

Just after my arrival, as I was superin- 
tending the loading of my trunk onto a most 
rickety wagon, the station agent touched 
my arm and, pointing across the tracks, 
said, "Thar^s one o' them Huggins boys, 
suh." 

I caught a fleeting glance of an amazing- 
ly long and lank youth jogging away astrad- 
dle a dilapidated mule. 

"Looks like Ichabod Crane, doesn't he?" 
I noted casually. 

The station agent was frankly puzzled to 
find the resemblance. He scratched his 
sandy head and spat thoughtfully. 

"Ah doan reckon," he drawled, "Ah 

15 



Sandhills Sketches 

know What's-Ms-name Crane. Is lie kin to 
tlie Cranes over in Scotland County?" 

"No," I laughed, "he's a school-master 
in a book." 

This information relieved him immensely. 
He would have been touched to the quick in 
his pride had he failed to recognize anyone 
in all the Sandhills, but a character in a 
book was quite a different matter. He 
grinned appreciatively. 

"Oh," he replied easily, "Ah ain't much at 
book readin' ; but ef What's-his-name Crane 
looked laik them Huggins boys. Ah bet he 
wasn't much of a school teacher." 

"Looks are deceiving," I quoted. 

"They shore are — them Huggins boys 
ain't more'n half as mean lookin' as they 
is." 

It was my turn to be puzzled, but the 
trunk was loaded now, and by the time I 
had given Uncle Willis his instructions, the 
agent had stepped back into his cubbyhole 
office. I wanted to question him further 
about "them Huggins boys" and find out 
the reason for his venomous words, but 
there were many things to be attended to, 
and, resolving to drop in on him some day 

16 



Sandhills Sketches 

between train times, I hurried over to the 
store. 

Ten minutes later I again heard of "them 
Huggins boys.'' The storekeeper, introduc- 
tions having been completed and after he 
had done his duty by the good weather and 
the abundance of quail in the vicinity, re- 
marked in his cheerful, talkative way that 
a neighbor of mine had just left. 

"Is that so — who was it?" I asked polite- 

ly. 

"One of them Huggins boys." 

I began to be distinctly curious about 
these mysterious youths. 

" 'Bout a mile away," the storekeeper re- 
plied to my question, "but Ah reckon you'll 
find that close enough." 

"These Huggins boys don't seem to be 
very popular," I said, hoping to lead him 
on. 

"They ain't," he answered shortly, add- 
ing confidentally, "Doan you lend 'em naw- 
thin' you set no value on." 

Another customer interrupted us. I 
thanked him for his advice, and he supple- 
mented it with the information. "We-all 
doan give 'em no credit here." 

17 



Sandhills Sketches 

That evening my next door neighbor, who 
lived half a mile away, dropped in to ex- 
tend his welcome. He too, warned me about 
these boys. Later I questioned his over- 
seer, who had ordered them off the planta- 
tion, and he characterized them shortly as 
"the damnedest nuisances in the country". 
iUncle Willis, after a deal of questioning, 
confessed, "Well, Massa Billie, hit's disa- 
way, dey is jest natcherly meaner dan a 
mad mule'\ 

Bits like this, a little here and a little 
there, I gathered up everywhere. In little 
scraps too, I collected their history. Their 
father before them had been a notorious 
character, famous as a fighter and a leader 
of moonshiners. All his life he had been a 
hard-drinking, work-hating good-for-noth- 
ing, and his sons, according to common re- 
port, were following right in his unsteady 
footsteps. There was not enough energy 
among the four of them to cultivate their 
little farm properly. They raised a little 
cotton and harbored a scrulbby cow and half 
a dozen gaunt, half-wild hogs, but land and 
stock, little cabin and dilapidated bam were 
all going to rack and ruin as fast as abuse 

18 



Sandhills Sketches 

and neglect could drive them. Failing to 
make a living out of what might have been a 
good little plantation, they hired out for 
odd jobs and in the winter burned tar. But 
their services were never greatly in demand, 
and just how they managed to live, and 
their old mother and sister too, was a mys- 
tery. Some people, with a great show of 
pretended knowledge, hinted at a 'blockade 
still and raw corn liquor sold to the dark- 
ies for two bits a quart. Others pointed 
out that whatever ready money they 
scraped together was invested in the cheap- 
est and most virulent whisky, which argued 
against any home-made intoxicants. All 
this I learned before I made their acquaint- 
ance, and our first meeting did not tend to 
improve the opinion I had formed of them. 
One Sunday morning, as I was sitting on 
the verandah pretending to read, but really 
luxuriating in the January sun, the Sab- 
bath peace was rudely broken by a quaver- 
ing falsetto voice whining out a darky song : 

"De Lord he thought he'd mak' a man. 

Dese bones gwine t' rise again! 
Lir bit o' earth an' lil' bit o' sand. 

Dese bones gwine t' rise again ! 
Ah knows it : de-ed Ah do know : Ah knows it, 

Dese bones gwine t' rise again! 

19 



Sandkills Sketches 

Thought He'd mak' a 'ooman too. 

Dese bones gwine t' rise again! 
Cast about see what He'd do. 

Dese bones gwine rise again! 
Ah knows it : de-ed Ah do know : Ah knows it, 

Dese bones gwine t' rise again! 

Tlie mournful sound was getting louder 
and louder. Evidently tlie singer was com- 
ing up the driveway. I laid aside my book 
and walked around tlie house to see who it 
was. 

"Took a rib from Adam's side. 

Dese bones gwine t* rise again! 
Made 'Miss Eve t' be his bride. 

Dese bones gwine rise again! 
Ah knows it: de-ed Ah " 

I stepped around the corner and the song 
stopped abruptly. A most remarkable ve- 
hicle, an ancient phaeton, all besplattered 
with red clay mud and held together with 
odd bits of rope, twine, and wire, was ap- 
proaching at a slow and dignified pace. It 
was drawn by a little moth-eaten mule who 
dragged his hoofs through the sand and 
flopped his big ears in a distressingly spirit- 
less manner. In violent contrast to their 
melancholy equipage two cheerful figures 
sprawled in the carriage. The driver, his 
great feet thrust over the wobbly dash- 
board his head resting on the back of the 

20 



Sandhills Sketches 

seat, was paying much, more attention to 
the wisps of white clouds overhead than 
to his steed. His companion, the singer, sat 
sideways, swinging his legs over the side 
in time with his song. He broke off in the 
middle of a word when he caught sight of 
me, and giving the driver a violent nudge, 
switched himself around into the carriage. 
The driver slipped his feet off the dash- 
board and hunched up iiitb an almost sitting 
position. The mule just stopped and, for 
all the world with the Dormouse at the 
mad tea-party, immediately went to sleep. 
The singer, too, might have posed for the 
drawings of the Mad Hatter himself. He 
had the same lean face with high cheek 
bones ; the same bulging eyes and prominent 
nose; the same protruding teeth and reced- 
ing chin. Nor was the driver unlike the 
March Hare. There was a strange mixture 
of brazen effrontery and extreme timidity 
in his manner. His shifting eyes and shuf- 
fling feet belied his bold speech. 

"Good morning,'^ I said. 

The singer nodded embarrassedly, and the 
driver, his eyes scanning the landscape, 
grunted, "Mawnin' ". 

21 



Sandhills Sketches 

"What can I do for you?" I asked 

"Is you the gem men's rented dis place?" 
asked the driver bluntly. 

I told them I had and they exchanged 
glances. 

"Ah'm Jim Huggins," the driver replied 
to my question, "an' he's mah /brother 
Tom," indicating the singer with a side- 
wise jerk of his head. "We live ovah yon- 
dah." 

"Oh," I exclaimed, "two of the Huggins 
boys. I'm glad to meet you. I've heard 
of you." 

They shook hands doubtfully, and Jim 
questioned me with open suspicion, 
"What'd you heah 'bout us?" 

Tom, who had not spoken till now, shift- 
ed uneasily, and before I could reply asked 
if I didn't want to buy some eggs. 

"MacDougall's sellin' 'em at the store," 
he added, "fo' fo'ty cents a dozen, but we- 
airi let you have 'em for thirty-five." 

I had bought eggs from MacDougall just 
the day before for thirty-five cents. 

"You say," I said, "that you'll sell me 
eggs for five cents less than the store price?" 

He nodded eagerly. 

22 



Sandhills Sketches 

"Well, then. I'll give you thirty cents a 
dozen for them — ^if Sally wants some." 

Again they exchanged glances. 

"Ah reckon that'll be alright," said Jim, 
looking everywhere but at me. 

I called Sally out of her kitchen, and she 
explained that " 'deed, Massa Billie, we-all 
has all de aiggs we kin use till 'bout Wed- 
nesday," so I told the Huggins 'boys to 
come back then. Their almost proverbial 
meanness flared up at this. They consid- 
ered my refusal to buy of them an insult 
and a great injustice, and muttered threats 
and abuse. 

"Here," I said, "stop your grumbling and 
clear out. I didn't ask you to bring me 
eggs, and I've ordered some for next Wed- 
nesday though you lied about the price. 
Stop your grumbling and get along with 
you. And next time you come round here 
leave that home." 

I pointed to an empty flask that lay neg- 
lected on the floor of the carriage. Jim 
kicked it under the seat, jerked at the reins 
to wake up the mule, and with something 
about "Jest's you say, boss," drove slowly 
ofie. 

23 



Sandhills Sketches 

So tliese were tlie far-famed Huggins 
boys. I watched them lialf way down the 
driveway, and then went 'back to my sunny 
seat and the book. As I settled myself, the 
quavering tones of Tom's high voice, taking 
up again his interrupted song, came floating 
to me. 

'Put 'em in a gardin fair. 

Dese bones gwine t' rise again! 
Tole 'em eat what they see there. 

Dese bones gwine rise again ! 
Ah knows it : de-ed Ah do know : Ah knows it, 

Dese bones gwine 't rise again. 

"Sarpint wound around a trunk. 

Dese bones gwine t' rise again. 
At Miss Eve his eye he wunk. 

(Dese bones gwine rise again. 
Ah knows it : de-ed Ah " 

' The words faded gradually in the dis- 
tance into a thin minor wail. 

The very next morning I had another 
visit from "them Huggins boys". I was 
out riding at the time, and when I came 
back I noticed someone had driven in and 
out of the driveway. It had rained during 
the night and the fresh tracks were plain in 
the sandy road. The hoof prints were long 
and narrow, evidently of a mule, and I won- 
dered idly who my visitor could have been. 
Sally told me. 

24 







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THIS iS A ■•1-KUiT-STAXD & TuKK' 




LORD OF THE PINEHURST DAIRY 





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AT THE PINEHURST FARM 



Sandhills Sketches 

"Hit's dose sMftless Hugp:ins boys again. 
They was trying t' sell mo' eggs, an' they 
got out an' cum right in de libin' room. Ah 
couldn't stop 'em nohow." 

Evidently they were going to make them- 
selves a first-class nuisance unless I put 
my foot down firmly. Kesolving to read 
them the riot act next time they came 
around, I tied the pony and went into the 
house, Sally protesting all the while against 
"all dese heah pore white trash". I went 
to the mantlepiece to fill my pipe. There 
was the tobacco pouch, but my pipe, my 
favorite briar, which I was sure I had put 
there just before I went out, was not there. 
Sally remembered seeing it, but had not 
touched it. 

"Hit mus' a been them Huggins boys tuk 
hit," she suggested. 

I hurried out and jumped on the pony. 

"Ef dey's been drinkin' look out fo' 'em," 
Sally called after me. "Dey's pow'rful 
mean in liquah." 

"Don't worry about me, Sally," I called 
back. "They wouldn't hurt anybody." 

By riding 'cross lots I came out on the 
road to their farm ahead of them. The tell- 

25 



Sandhills Sketches 

tale tracks in the sand told they had driven 
out, but had not yet returned. I rode back 
to meet them. Half way to the main road 
I came up with them. They were coming 
along at their usual funeral pace, and the 
musical Tom was whistling a jolly jig tune. 
I rode up and stopped their mule. 

"Good mawnin', suh,'' they chorused. 

"Which of you boys smokes a pipe?'' I 
asked. 

They were surprised and outdid each 
other in looking as innocent as lambs. 

"Whichever it is, hand over my pipe." 

They shifted uneasily, but neither made 
a move to restore my property. 

"Come, be quick," I said, moving the 
pony in closer to their carriage. 

Tom slowly reached in his pocket and 
drew out my pipe. He reached it out to me 
silently. 

"Thanks," I said. "Now understand this : 
the next time I catch or hear of one of you 
boys on my place except on 'business I am 
coming after him with this." 

I shook my riding crop and they nodded 
solemnly. The pony was dancing about and 
I rode off. leaving them looking after me 

26 



Sandhills Sketches 

surprised and disgusted, a little mad, but 
properly scared. After that we became 
friends. 

Till recently the country where "them 
Huggins boys" live has been known all over 
North Carolina as "poor old Moore 
County". It lies in the very heart of the 
Sandhills, and the farmers who "make 
corn and cotton on the clay" have long 
scoffed at the sandy slopes where, so the 
joke runs, "you can hear the cotton grunt- 
ing trying to make a living in the poor soil". 
Too poor even to give a decent stand of 
grass — except the eoarse, useless crab grass 
— the Sandhills supported a fine growth of 
long leafed pine, and years ago the Huggins 
boys' grandfather and his neighbors eked 
out their thin crops with the tall, straight 
timber and with turpentine. Their sons, 
the best of the timber gone, hewed out rail- 
road ties and burned tar. They were poor 
farmers on poor soil, a ruinous combina- 
tion. The roads were bad, and the Sand- 
hills' natives, having little to sell and noth- 
ing with which to buy, lived sufficient unto 
themselves. Theirs was a narrow life and 
a hard one, a life of few pleasures and al- 

27 



Sandhills Sketches 

most no advantages, of much labor and 
little reward. 

A score of years ago new factors entered 
into the life of the Sandhills. Inspired by 
the few passengers and little freight on this 
division of the road, railroad men turned 
their attention to this country. They sent 
agricultural and industrial experts who re- 
ported back that all the Sandhills had was 
a glorious winter climate. So the general 
passenger agent and the traffic manager 
consulted physicians, and the Sandhills be- 
came famous as a resort for tubercular pa- 
tients. But wiser men nipped the growing 
sanitoriums in the bud and planted in their 
stead great winter resorts, big hotels, golf 
courses, hunting preserves. 

Men and women came from all over the 
country to slip away from Jack Frost and 
play in the open, and the mysterious spell 
of the Sandhills was thrown over them. 

Under this spell a little group of North- 
em men, fresh from college, ambitious and 
full of energy, decided the Sandhills should 
be good for other things besides golf and 
quail shooting. Agricultural experts from 
Ealeigh and Washington said things that 

28 



Sandhills Sketches 

confirmed this ibelief, and these young men 
turned Sandhills farmers. The Huggins 
boys' father and his neighbors in poor old 
Moore County laughed at these soft-handed 
agriculturists; but they fattened cattle with 
great profit over at Jackson Springs; they 
grew tobacco at Samarcand which brought 
top price in the open market, and their big 
dairy near Hoffman sold cream to the rail- 
road and fed hogs on the skimmed milk. 
The pioneers have 'been followed by others, 
and most of the Huggins boys' neighbors 
from good examples have learned to get 
bigger crops and sell them for higher prices. 
But in among the hills, a little way ,back 
from the railroad and the new automobile 
highways the old life, the hard, narrow life, 
is still lived. "Them Huggins boys" and 
their poor, old mother and drab sister are 
still drudging along in the old way. That, 
after I knew them, was the only real fault 
I found. They are not vicious or mean: 
they are frightened and suspicious. They 
are not clever and they are very lazy, so 
they have no confidence in themselves to 
cope with the keener competition that the 
new life has brought. They have neither 
29 



Sandhills Sketches 

the speed nor the stamina to stand the 
swifter pace, and they balk. Underneath 
their diffidence and sham effrontery they 
are helpless and hopeless. They are the 
tattered remnaats of an out-worn age. 



30 



A Sandhills Christmas Carol 

iii^HRIS^MAS gift, Massa Billie, Chris'- 

^^ mas gift!'' 

Aunt Sally, black and beaming stood at 
the door of my room, trying at once to 
waken me and arouse my Christmas spirit. 
I opened one eye and she redoubled her ef- 
forts, laughing. 

"Merry Christmas, Sally! What time is 
it?" 

"Merry Christmas, yo'self, Massa Billie — 
'deed hit's 'most aight o'clock." 

"The dickens it is!" I cried sitting bolt 
upright in bed, "didn't I tell you to call 
me at six?" 

"Yassah, yo' shore did, but Ah jest 
knowed you'd not want to go shootin' dia 
mawnin'. Hit's rainin'." 

Sally was right ; it was raining, a steady, 
soaking, most un-Christmas-like rain. Out 
of the little windows I could see the Sand- 
hills drenched and dripping. The great 

31 



Sandhills Sketches 

long-leafed pines, so proud and stately in 
the bright sunlight, stood dejected and 
tawdry. Even the jovial little holly bush 
at the comer of the porch had quite lost its 
gay, holiday air. Down in the valley, at the 
head of the branch, the rich, warm greens 
and olives of the magnolias and bluegums 
seemed grey and melancholy in the fine mist 
that spread over the lowlands. "Sam," the 
most sedate and dignified of pointers, 
strolled into my room and put his head on 
the side of the bed. 

"No hunting for us today, old man," I 
said to him, and he sniffed sympathetically 
and blinked his yellow eyes as much as to 
say, "I know it — ^ain't it the devil?" He was 
so very sad about it that I could not help 
laughing at the old sportsman. 

Indeed it was not a pleasing prospect. A' 
rainy Christmas — no shooting — ^and stuck 
off in a tiny bungalow, several miles from 
anywhere, with only the remnants of another 
man's library for company — Ugh! I drag- 
ged on my clothes without any enthusiasm 
for the day. But Aunt Sally's breakfast — 
golden scrambled eggs heaped up in the cen- 
ter of a fringe of crisp bacon, with corn 

32 



Sandhills Sketches 

bread, and steaming cakes smotliered in 
molasses — cheered me wonderfully; and 
then, after breakfast, Uncle Willis, her hus- 
band, came shuffling up from his cabin for 
his "Chris'mas gift.'' 

He inspected his present thoughtfully, 
and thanked me with verbose formality for 
it. Then he began talking. Willis is al- 
ways an entertaining conversationalist, 
though I fear he is not a thoroughly reli- 
able source of exact information. As Toby 
confided to me one day, "Dat nigger's de 
wo'st liar in de Sandhills, ef not on de 
whol' state of No'th Carolina, an' thar's 
some tol'ably good liars down disaways." 
His vivid imagination made penniless, rag- 
ged Willis a Midas. He knew more about 
cotton than the whole of the Department of 
Agriculture, and as for tar burning, he 
could sweat more black, sticky stuff out of 
a cord of pine wood than any nigger in 
Moore County, though he would hegrudging- 
ly acknowledge that Jim Watson could go 
him one better in this. There was a wonder- 
ful, childlike simplicity in his optimism, but 
his absolute faith in your belief of his yams 
was irritating till you recognized the artist 

33 



Sandhills Sketches 

in Mm. I remember how out of patience I 
was with Mm when he solemnly informed 
me one day "dat 'bout fo' y'ars ago he'd 
been huntin' b'ar wif Massa Teddy Roos'velt 
dowTi in Drownin' Creek Swamp." 

^^Willis," I said to him sharply, "you are 
an unmitigated liar!" 

" 'Deed I is, Massa Billie, but Ah jest 
thought you'd like t' heah 'bout Mt." 

So I did, but tMs Christmas morning 
I was in no humor to listen to his prattle, 
and until he got on the subject of "hants 
and conjurin'," I gave him but scant at- 
tention. The sly rascal knows this way of 
arousing my flagging interest, and employs 
it very effectively. 

"Massa Billie," he said, "Ah doan' su'- 
pose yo' done heah dat sumbuddy's been con- 
jurin' Lee Gordon, has yo'?" 

"I haven't, no — who is Lee Gordon?" 

"He's a cousin of mah Sally's over at 
Cognac. He's been a-workin' on de railroad 
wid de section gang, but he done move to 
Hoffman las' night." 

"In all the rain? On Christmas eve?" I 
asked skeptically. 

"Yassah, right in de rain an' on Chris'- 

34 



Sandhills Sketches 

mas eve. When lie come liome last evenin' 
he done found a conjure lay in' right on de 
front do-step. Ah doan' jest 'actly know 
what kind ob a conjure, but hit war shore 
a mighty pow'ful one." And sure of his 
audience he launched forth in full details 
of how the darky had moved his wife and 
numerous children, all his goods and chat- 
tels, right over to Hoffman and was staying 
with his wife's brother, Noah Wilson. 

^'Why did he move last night?" I asked 
to egg him on. 

"But yo' shore doan' 'spect him t' stay in 
dat cabin wid a conjure layin' on de front 
do'-step, does yo', Massa Billie?" 

"Why not?" I replied. New England 
fashion, to draw him out. 

"Eff yo' steps ober a conjure," he replied 
earnestly, "yo' is laik t' die, an' eben eff yo' 
doan' step ober it, yo' is laik t' die anyway. 
But dey all moved out de back do'," he 
added reassuringly. He digressed to tell 
how all the household goods had been taken 
out the back way, stopping to recount the 
history of a certain bed, a family heirloom 
of slavery days. Finally, however, he got 
back to conjuring, and, expressing in the 

35 



Sandhills Sketches 

same breatli his most abject fear and his 
utter contempt for all Black Art, lie told 
me considerable about this mysterious mat- 
ter. "Eff yo' has de conjurin' pow'rs/' so 
I learned, you can kill your enemies by 
placing a conjure where they will walk over 
it. If, however, you are not so terribly vin- 
dictive, you can merely drive them crazy by 
placing a hair of their head in the tough 
bark of a little, twisted black-jack oak. 
Should you be very merciful indeed, and if 
you merely wish to get some objectionable 
person out of your path, you can pick up 
a bit of dirt out of his footprint in the high- 
road and throw it, accompanied by proper 
chants and incantations, into running 
water. Henceforth that person will be a 
hapless wanderer over the face of the earth. 
There are, I gather, other awful powers that 
obey the commands of the conjurer, and his 
poor victims can only be freed from his spell 
h^ applying to awitch doctor. He, Ms palm 
having been duly crossed, will first deter- 
mine the exact nature of the spell. He takes 
a little iron kettle about the size of your 
two fists, and mounts this upon a little 
pyramid of dry pine sticks. In the kettle 

36 



Sandhills Sketches 

he places cold water from a running stream 
and into it he throws salt, herbs, and sun- 
dry mysterious powders. Then he kindles 
the fire. While the little blaze crackles, he 
chants, and then, if the kettle falls off the 
sticks before the kettle boils it means "yo^ 
is shore conjured'^ — a thing that must as- 
suredly happen if the doctor is careful to 
use dry wood that is fairly steeped with 
rosin. Then you must cross his palm again, 
and he will throw about you a counter- 
charm. 

At this point my lesson in Black Art was 
interrupted. 

Jerry, a half-gro^n negro who lived over 
by the Tower, knocked on the door, and I 
could never get Willis to resume his course 
of instruction. Jerry, grinning and bob- 
bing, delivered a formal invitation from the 
switch operator over at the signal tower on 
the railroad, half a mile away, to come and 
share with him a Christmas box he had re- 
ceived from his wife. I accepted, and we 
set off, the boy and I, through the warm 
drizzle that enveloped you and soaked 
through your clothes as if they had been 
tissue paper. 

37 



Sandhills Sketches 

The Christmas box was not a perfect suc- 
cess. It had been packed in cardboard and 
had been sadly damaged in transit, so that 
you would bite into a crumpled piece of 
capital, homemade cake to find the frosting 
— and maybe a brick-like gum drop — em- 
bedded in the center. But my host, the op- 
erator, is a communicative, ingenuous soul 
whose spirits no amount of Christmas rain 
could dampen. On Christmas Eve he had 
spent two hours of his spare time ploughing 
through swamps to pick a great bunch of 
holly. He had even found a mistletoe, a 
sprig of which dangled at the end of a silver 
cord, relic of a box of candy, over the levers 
of his switches. The day was close and 
muggy, but in honor of the occasion his lit- 
tle, pot-bellied, iron stove glowed ruddy with 
heat. Over his telegraph instruments was 
strung a line of garish Christmas post cards, 
flaming with scarlet and emerald green 
daubs of color, besprinkled with tinsel, de- 
claring, as through a megaphone, "Peace on 
Earth— Good Will to Men." The stuffy 
little signal tower fairly reeked with the 
Christmas spirit, and as we sat munching 
fruit cake I looked over at my happy host 

38 



Sandhills Sketches 

and was ashamed that a little rain should 
wash all the warm, generous Christmas out 
of me. 

Yes, this was decidedly better than moping 
alone in the bungalow. With every freight 
that came to a screeching, bumpy stop be- 
neath, a burly brakeman would thrump up 
the steps of the signal tower for train 
orders. Dripping rain water from his rub- 
ber coat, he would throw open the door with 
a "Merry Christmas! Say, ain't this a 
peach of a Christmas day?'' If his train 
must wait on the switch for another to pass, 
he would sit down by the fire and between 
enormous mouthfuls of cake and candy, tell 
a railroad yarn or retail a bit of railroad 
gossip. For hours I perched on the tele- 
graph table watching this strange proces- 
sion. After a short nod they paid little at- 
tention to me, for my host never bothered 
with introductions, and I sat there with the 
curious feeling that I was at the theatre. 
Certainly these men were of another w^orld, 
each so different and yet each so true to the 
type. A thick-set, square-faced little fellow 
with the sharp twang of Down East in his 
voice would be followed by a tall, light strip- 

39 



Sandhills Sketches 

ling whose low drawl betrayed him long be- 
fore he casually mentioned that he wished 
he could have been home in Savannah this 
day. They talked only of railroading. They 
whirled up and down the length of the 
country from New York to Florida and back 
again, many times during the year and saw 
nothing but switches and roundhouses ; they 
passed nothing but expresses and other 
freights; they met no one save engineers, 
conductors, and brakemen like themselves. 
They lived a life divided into miles and 
minutes, bounded by the glistening rails, 
but within this life they found complete 
absorption, for it is a complicated, danger- 
ous life in which exact knowledge is at a 
premium. 

About three o'clock in the afternoon, 
"Shorty" thrumped in from Cognac. He 
was working the "second trick,'' or as we 
out of the signal towers would say, the 
second shift, and he came over on a freight 
to be ready to take up his duties at four. 

"Say," he exclaimed gleefully, after the 
season's greetings had been exchanged and 
he had sampled the now nearly demolished 
Christmas box, "McNab sure did play some 

40 




ON THE SWITCH BY THE TOWER 




SANDHILLS RAPID TRANSIT 




THE TAR BURNER'S WAGON 




THE BURNING TAR KILN 



Sandhills Sketches 

good trick on some of his niggers last 
night.'' 

"He's like to play one too many tricks on 
them niggers of his," said our host. "D'you 
remember 'bout that section boss over on 
the L. & N. that was found with his skull 
stove in with a sledge?" 

"Aw, shucks! McNab treats his niggers 
good, but there was a family of them livin' 
in a shack right behind his house, an' they'd 
sing an' howl half the night, so McNab's 
been 'bout crazy to get shut of them some- 
way. He tried fifty ways to close them up, 
but yesterday he took a bit of rabbit skin 
and rolled it up in a little ball and wrapped 
it round with a strip of red flannel, and tied 
it all 'round with a horse hair. Then he went 
an' left it on the nigger's front door step. 
When the nigger comes home, he starts hol- 
lerin' bloody murder about somebody tryin' 
to conjure him. He and his whole tribe 
moves out last night, an' every bit of their 
studdings went out the back door to dodge 
that conjure of McNab's." 

Shorty broke off laughing, and I asked, 
"Was the nigger's name Lee Gordon?" 

'Deed I don't know, but they moved to 
41 



a r 



Sandhills Sketches 

Hoffman. Say, I'll bet there ain't a nigger 
in the whole Sandhills will live in that 
cabin now," and Shorty chuckled to himself. 
I told Uncle Willis all about it later. All 
that he would say was, "H'm ! Those rail- 
road men am mighty smart, ain't dey?" He 
did not, however, mean to be sarcastic, for 
a couple of weeks later when I suggested 
that his brother Henry move into Lee Gor- 
don's old cabin in Cognac he was horrified 
at the thought. Yet Henry lived in Hoff- 
man and worked in Cognac and was always 
complaining of the length and expense of 
his commuting. Although the cabin in Cog- 
nac would have solved this problem and 
was really a first-class house in good con- 
dition, Willis could only answer with a 
shrug and a shuffle, and a "Ah doan' 'spect 
Henry'll care none 'bout livin' in dat dere 
shack." 



42 



cc 



Tar Burnin' '' 



WHEN first I went to Nortli Carolina 
to spend the winter in the Sandhills, 
my knowledge of tar was limited to school- 
boy memories of tar-balls made from ma- 
terial purloined from the contractors who 
paved New York's streets and a rather in- 
direct connection through a cousin who had 
once put a tar roof on his stables and cor- 
dially regretted it. Down in the Sandhills, 
old Uncle Willis Baldwin, by verbose pre- 
cept and halting example, taught me just 
how the black, sticky stuff is wrung from 
the dried wood of the long-leaf pine, bar- 
reled up, and brought to market. 

Soon the good old-fashioned way that 
Uncle Willis bums his tar will be replaced 
by a very efficient, but thoroughly uninter- 
esting machine, a great still, with a gigantic 
metal retort in a brick oven as big as Willis' 
little shanty. The old darky tar burner 
who considers himself lucky to get a barrel 

43 



Sandhills Sketches 

of crude tar from a cord of dry pine is but 
a faltering competitor of the macMne that 
from the same wood can wring two barrels 
of tar, valuable creosote, and other import- 
ant wood oils. Squeezing out fifteen dol- 
lars where before but three or four were 
extracted is all in strict accord with eco- 
nomic progress, and plainly it is very much 
more profitable — for those who own the 
stills — but this fine machine is costly be- 
yond the dreams even of Willis' vivid imag- 
ination, and it is but a question of time 
when the negro tar burner and his hand- 
made tar kilns will be another vanished bit 
of the Old South. 

Willis had made a tar-burning agreement 
— ^the usual one in such cases — with Massa 
Kalph. Massa Ralph supplied the dry pine 
wood — ^^light 'ud'' Willis calls it — and he 
further agreed to furnish the barrels to hold 
the tar. Uncle Willis, on his part, under- 
took to collect the wood ou Massa Ralph's 
land, to build and burn the tar-kiln, to fill 
the barrels and deliver them to the railroad 
at Hoffman. Each was to receive a half of 
the receipts from the sale of the tar. 

On a piece of level ground, down in the 

44 



Sandhills Sketches 

valley beside tlie little trickling braneli, just 
behind my bungalow, Willis "done built 
Msself a whalin' big tar-kiF." First lie dug 
out a slight hollow, like a great wash basin 
full twenty feet across, with a trench lead- 
ing from the center to a deep pit dug just 
outside the outer edge. Then he and his 
brother Henry hitched up their old grey 
mule and scoured all over the land, piling 
the dilapidated wagon with the dry wood 
they picked up everywhere and hauling load 
after load to the site of the kiln. After a 
great store had been collected, Henry fell 
to work chopping up the knotty stumps and 
splitting the long logs, while Willis pains- 
takingly constructed the kiln. This must 
be carefully and neatly done, for the quan- 
tity of the tar yielded depends most directly 
upon the close and proper building of the 
kiln. Around the outer edge Uncle Willis 
laid row upon row of the long, straight, 
split rails, each pointing due to the center 
and each one fitted with scrupulous nicety 
into its place. In the center of the kiln he 
stowed away the little twisted knots and 
gnarled bits of root, all so rich in tar. This 
is rough work too, and were not old Willis' 

45 



Sandhills Sketches 

black hands as tough as sole leather, they 
would be filled with splinters. 

After the kiln had slowly risen till it was 
full seven feet high at its outer rim, it was 
topped off with a roof made of the split 
rails. Aunt Sally and "de chilluns'' were 
now pressed into service flagging the kiln. 
On the roof they laid a covering of long-leaf 
pine boughs, and then they stuck similar 
branches into the crevices of the sides until 
the whole looked like a great, regular mound 
of giant pine needles. Uncle Willis and 
Henry again took up the work. They now 
banked the kiln. Starting at the ground, 
and building up tier on tier, they laid long 
logs of green wood round the kiln. In be- 
tween the long logs and the kiln itself they 
packed sod and dirt., transforming the great 
heap of pine needles into an octagonal, log 
block house in miniature. Sand and clay 
piled six inches deep on the top and then 
packed down finished the job. Willis was 
now ready to burn his kiln. 

So far everything had gone swimmingly, 
but now a long series of troubles hegan to 
fall with distressing regularity on Willis' 

46 



Sandhills Sketches 

woolly head. A dozen times a day lie would 
come shuflaing up for my consolation and 
advice. Off would come Ms battered hat 
and he would begin, " 'Deed, Massa Billie, 

Ah doan' know ", till, had I not felt so 

sorry for the old man, I would have been 
driven crazy by these woeful consultations. 

In this big tar-kiln he had planned and 
executed his magnum opus, which should 
not only re-establish his shaky credit at the 
store in Hoffman, but must also supply the 
necessary capital for cotton seed and fer- 
tilizer against the fast approaching plant- 
ing season. He was staking more than his 
little all on this kiln ; he was gambling in 
futures, futures of slab-side pork and corn 
meal ; a promised dress for the Xantippean 
Sally and much needed shoes for Carolina, 
Liza, Sally II, Robert Lee, and a couple of 
the other children whose names I forget. 

His great tar-kiln, built so patiently and 
with such great expectations, contained 
about seventy cords of good wood and 
should, according to all expert calculation, 
yield about seventy barrels of tar. Massa 
Ralph's overseer, deputized to get these 
seventy, barrels, had only been able to col- 

47 



Sandhills Sketches 

lect forty. He scoured tlie country, mills, 
cross-road stores, freight offices, but every 
available source of supply that usually had 
barrels almost to give away had no barrels 
now, even at fancy prices. And Willis, be- 
cause once the kiln was started there would 
be no stopping nor turning back, was afraid 
to fire the kiln until he had on hand enough 
containers to hold his expected quantity of 
tar. Moreover, poor Willis had agreed to 
pay Henry fifty cents a day till the tar was 
all run, and he saw the wages of his helper 
daily eating deeper and deeper into his 
profits. To cap the climax, the market 
price of tar was tumbling down at an amaz- 
ing rate, and every no-'count nigger that 
passed along the road took a diabolical de- 
light in stopping at Willis's cabin and giv- 
ing him the very latest and most discourag- 
ing market quotations. Poor old Willis! 
Whenever he saw me he implored help in 
getting him some barrels, and I never rode 
over to Hoffman without bearing an urgent 
message to the freight agent — "Fo' de 
Lawd's sake, Massa Billie, tell him t' hurry 
hup dat lot ob bar'ls what Massa Ralph 
done order in Wilmington." 

48 




BUILDING THE TAR Ki 



j^^^^^^^^^^^^^V 


;. 1 




§ 


1 ; 



TILLING THE BARRELS 




i;a.\ki'N(- 




FLAGGING 



Sandhills Sketches 

At last tlie long-expected barrels came, 
and one evening about dusk Jim Watson 
scraped tbe dirt and bougbs off tbe roof of 
Willis' kiln for a couple of square feet and 
applied a matcb to the dry lightwood under- 
neath. As the red flames darted through 
the black smoke, Willis heaved a great sigh 
of relief. Had everything gone smoothly, 
Willis would have run the kiln himself. So 
many things had gone wrong and so very 
much depended on this kiln that he called 
in Jim Watson, who plays the part of tar 
burning efficiency expert throughout the 
Sandhills, in. the hope, I believe, of his be- 
ing able to break the spell of bad luck. In 
the back of his brain there was some notion 
that the fee he paid to Jim Watson hired 
not only his supposedly superior experience, 
but also bought a charm against further 
misfortune. 

All night long the ruddy glow of the burn- 
ing kiln lighted up the little valley, aud the 
pungent, piney smell of the black smoke 
filled the air. Up at the bungalow, two 
hundred yards away, we could hear the snap 
and crackle of the burning knots and the 
thick scent of the pitch penetrated the 

49 



Sandhills Sketches 

house. Early in the morning, Willis covered 
the hole in the banking of the roof under 
the direction of Jim Watson who, perched 
on an up-turned barrel, gave directions with 
a thoroughly expert and professional air. 
Now the kiln began to smoulder, and the 
pair sat down, only getting up to patch with 
great shovelsful of earth any cracks that 
appeared in the banking. 

About the middle of the afternoon, the 
tar, sweated out of the pine wood by the 
intense heat, began to ooze out of the trench. 
Slowly at first, drop by drop; soon in a 
little trickle that grew in size, till by night- 
fall, it was pouring out so that one of the 
workers must busily ply the bucket all the 
time. This bucket Willis had fastened on 
the end of a long pole, and with it he 
scooped the black, sticky mess out of the 
pit, pouring it into a rough wooden trough 
through which it flowed into the waiting 
barrel. This work must go on day and 
night, and the kiln must also be carefully 
watched lest it catch fire; so Willis had 
built a crude hut for shelter, and here, w^hen 
not on duty, the burners rested on a great 

50 



Sandhills Sketches 

heap of filthy blankets. Sally brought them 
their meals, and they slept by turns in 
snatches. 

Jim Watson had not brought good luck 
with him, for just as the tar began to run, 
it started to rain. A chilly northwest wind 
sent the shivers chasing each other down 
old Willis' sun-loving back, and the water 
soon came pouring through the chinks in 
the imperfect shelter. The wet and cold 
could, at worst, mean a heavy cold or a 
sharp twinge of the rheumatism ; a heavier 
blow of misfortune awaited Willis. 

The great kiln behaved itself very properly 
indeed for a day and a half, and twenty 
good barrels were filled with tar. In spite of 
the bad weather old Willis was jubilant, but 
his joy was untimely, for despite his expert 
help, things went wrong with the kiln. Air 
sneaked in somewhere through some un- 
noticed crack in the banking, and then the 
lightwood, instead of smouldering, burst into 
flame, burning up both wood and tar. What 
a blaze the tar-soaked pine made ! It roared 
and it snapped. Great jets of red fire, fol- 
lowed by puffs of inky smoke, thrust them- 
selves through the banking. Every now 

51 



Sandhills Sketches 

and tlien a blazing knot, accompanied by a 
whole train of bright sparks, would be 
burled through the roof and shot ten feet 
into the air. Fifty feet from the kiln I had 
to hold my hands over my face to keep off 
the intense heat, but like a great black 
Satan stoking the brimstone fires, Willis 
slaved, patching the shattered banking, 
throwing dirt on the roof in the hope of 
smothering the fierce fire and saving the 
remnant of the tar. And Jim Watson 
worked too, like a Trojan, for the blame and 
disgrace of the accident were his. 

Finally, they succeeded in choking the 
flames under control, but the seventy bar- 
rels of tar for which Willis had worked so 
hard and waited so long had shrunk to 
thirty-one. Over at Hoffman he received 
just four dollars and a quarter a barrel for 
his tar, and but ten days before the price 
had been five dollars. He paid off his high- 
priced expert and settled up with his 
brother Henry. Then he came over to con- 
sult with me. He took the crumpled, little 
wad of dirty bank notes out of his pocket 
and looked at it ruefully. 

"Hit doan' mak^ much ob ah show fo' all 

52 



Sandhills Sketches 

dat work an' all dat time, does hit, Massa 
Billie?'' and then he added earnestly, his 
black face seamed with doubt and appre- 
hension, ^^Mebbe so — Ah doan' know — but 
hit do 'most seem as eff thar's sumbuddy 
conjured dat ole tar kir." 



53 



Some Quail Dogs — And Others 

$i/^LD JOE'' and Ms daughter ^^Qiieen" 
v^ are as ill-assorted a brace of point- 
ers as ever hunted a covey along the edge of 
a field of cow peas. In the first place, no- 
body, to look at them, would ever suspect 
their relationship. 

"Joe" is a strapping, lemon marked dog, 
with a heavy head and a tail like a couple 
of feet of garden hose. He has too much 
"lumber" to please any bench show judge, 
but no sportsman can look at him without 
recognizing a sturdy, capable workman. 
He is one of the stolid, old-time type of 
"Mainspring," "Rip Rap," "Bow," "Faust" 
and the other heroes of his race imported 
in the early days from England. Despite 
his coarseness, he shows his breeding, but 
his daughter, on the other hand, is a com- 
mon looking rat of a pointer, light and 
racy, thin as a match stick and as nervous 
as the needle of a pocket compass. She is 

54 



Sandhills Sketches 

a thickly ticked liver all splotched over with 
great patches of solid color. Her nose is 
snipy, her skull is domed, her tail curls pro- 
vokingly upwards, and her thin ears are 
long and pendulous, so that one suspects 
that somew^here in her mother's family 
there may have been a mesalliance with a 
foxhound. This suspicion is emphatically 
denied by her owner. Perversely, he wor- 
ships this ugly duckling of his. 

The old dog is a mighty hunter and quail 
are his favorite sport, but he takes his 
pleasures sadly. He is as sedate as a senior 
deacon and as serious as the professor of 
Sanskrit in a German University. Even 
when his beloved Master appears in his bat- 
tered felt hat and stained and faded hunt- 
ing coat, "Joe," though he trembles with ex- 
citement, never allows his feelings to get 
the better of him. His self control is mar- 
velous. 'Round and 'round he walks, stiff 
legged like a terrier boiling for a fight, his 
tail as straight and stiff as a broom handle, 
his big nose quivering, his yellow eyes flash- 
ing. But "Queen" skips about, barking 
short, yappy barks, wagging her tail and 
wriggling her slender body. She is always 

55 



Sandhills Sketches 

as flighty as a giggling schoolgirl. Last 
winter was her first hunting season, and she 
threw herself into the good sport of finding 
quail as a giddy debutante abandons herself 
to the social whirl. She was out for a good 
time, and she had it. So did we who fol- 
lowed her mad racings over the Sandhills. 
In the field, this strange pair carry with 
them all their differences, but by a sys- 
tem of hunting that the trifling "Queen" 
invented herself, they managed between 
them to find an amazing number of birds. 
"Joe" is blessed with a truly wonderful 
power of scent and cursed with an excess of 
caution. Not in the memory of man has he 
ever been known to over-run his birds. 
Time and again his fine nose catches the 
scent of the covey twenty or more yards 
off. Then he takes so long creeping up to 
them that they run imerrily off, leaving 
a confusing and exasperatingly tempting 
foot scent for him to snuffle over. Poor 
old "Joe" — there is no more snap to 
his work than there is to pea soup, but 
"Queen" — she hunts, as a Bobby Watson 
says, "laik ah bunch o' fiah-crackers." She 

56 






'STEADY 



Photos by Mr. Kirkove 




UAIL 




'HUNTER'S HOME' 



^M ^ 


.JSm 




jj^iiiirfii 




U 




if"' 



Photo by Mr. Kirkover 

A OOVEY IN THE LONG-LEAF PINE 



Sandhills Sketches 

loves to run. Over the Sandhills she races, 
head up, tail waving. 

At first she often ran pluml) into a covey 
before she had the slightest idea that there 
was such a thing as a quail within a hun- 
dred miles of her. Startled and disgusted 
she would stand stock still for a moment, 
and then, as much as to say, "O well, no 
matter — better luck next time,'' she would 
be off again. 

But this was only at first. She soon got 
the hang of the game, and, while she con- 
tinued to range far afield, she learned not 
to flush. "Joe" is too old a dog to learn 
any new tricks, but the versatile "Queen" 
has devised an unscrupulous hunting sys- 
tem of her own that is absolutely unortho- 
dox but which fits in admirably with his 
slow methods. As she prances over the 
hills, she keeps one eye on her steady sire. 
When she sees him acting "birdy" she will 
rush in, dart in front of him, and hold the 
birds till he comes up. It is, of course, very 
wrong of her indulgent owner to allow her 
to ravish points in this high handed manner. 
He knows it, and will sheepishly excuse her, 
by saying he hadn't the heart to leave the 

57 



Sandhills Sketches 

old dog home, but he is such a potterer, we 
should never find birds unless he let 
"Queen" have her way. In this way of hers 
she has a splendid good time. Without giv- 
ing up the sport of running riot, she has 
the sport of pointing with the warm scent 
in her quivering nostrils, all the excitement 
of the shooting, and the pleasant duty of 
retrieving. 

Poor old "Joe" regards this erratic sys- 
tem of hunting with the greatest disfavor. 
Whenever "Queen" darts in front of him to 
point the covey he has found, he stops and 
looks at her, saying, just as plain as Eng- 
lish, "Impudent puppy!" Then he turns 
and looks at his Master, "It's a disgrace, sir, 
the disrespect of the younger generation — a 
disgrace. Whatever are we coming to?" 
He sniffs an emphatically contemptuous 
sniff and walks in very dignifiedly to back 
up her point. How annoyed he is if she 
breaks ever so little at the sound of the guns, 
and with what a perfect holier-than-thou 
air he will wait patiently for the command, 
"Fetch!" His self-rightou«ness knows no 
bounds if, when "Queen" is seeking busily 
about, he can, as he often does, go straight 

58 



Sa7idhills Sketches 

to the dead bird, pick it up, toss it into 
his mouth, and walk off, saying, "There, 
little girl, that's the proper way to do it.'' 
What a splendid conservative he is! Poor 
old chap, his hunting days are nearly over 
now. Though he stoutly refuses to acknowl- 
edge it, he has outlived his generation. I 
don't suppose that even as a puppy he was 
a dashing performer, and now, on the verge 
of his dotage, he has become unbearably 
deliberate. Yet for all his provoking faults 
one cannot but admire his stout heart and 
his passion for hunting. He is the very pat- 
tern of the good sportsman of the Old 
School, kindly, keen, and a bit old fashioned 
in his ways. He is thoroughly game and 
will go hunting till he drops. Even now, 
old as he is, he will face a swamp thicket 
bristling with briars, at five in the after- 
noon that many a younger dog would not 
hunt the first thing in the morning. 

There is "Gypsy," for example — she never 
will hunt any but the easiest places. She 
is a little picture setter who comes down 
to the Sandhills from Connecticut every 
winter for the quail season. She is clever as 
an urchin and dainty as a princess. She has 

59 



Sandhills Sketches 

a capital nose and all tlie speed in tlie world 
— when it pleases her ladyship to use her 
gifts. She knows just where to hunt for 
the birds and she handles them in a truly 
masterful way, but she has no more real 
love of hunting than a Berkshire hog and 
not half the spunk of a cottontail. She is 
as different from "Joe" as "Queen," yet I 
know a very nice old lady whose sons, she 
says, keep her "horse and dog poor," who 
finds all their hunting dogs uninteresting, 
because forsooth they lack individuality. 

I wish that she might know Capt'n Jack 
Evans's four dogs. They are all half broth- 
ers and sisters, but nobody could fail to note 
their marked, distinct personalities. The 
rollicking "Bob" and the timid "Dot" are 
full brother and sister; brilliant "Bessie" 
and plodding "Sport" have the same daddy 
as the others, but different mothers. 

The privilege of going hunting with 
Capt'n Jack and this quartet may be pur- 
chased at reasonable rates by the day or the 
week, but the honor of accompanying him 
when he himself goes hunting for sport is 
bestowed upon very few. I was delighted 
then when one morning he took me aside, 

60 



Sandhills Sketches 

as we were waitirig for the mail at the post 
office, and whispered that had found a piece 
of country back in the hills "whar Ah rec- 
kon, suh, thar^s more'n a million quail V 
the acre." Capt^n Jack knows the Sandhills, 
and he is not given to making promises he 
cannot keep. I was sure we should find 
plenty of good sport. 

Bright and early next morning, while the 
snap of the night frost was still in the air, 
we set off to hunt this quail metropolis. The 
four dogs tumbled about in the tonneau 
over the gun cases and lunch basket. "Bob'' 
jumped from side to side, critically inspect- 
ing the country, while "Dot'' and "Sport" 
lay on the floor, and "Bess" bounced about 
on the rear seat. We left the main road 
soon and burrowed for five or six miles 
along a twisting, sandy trail through the 
pine woods. We stopped on the flat top of 
a hill, a miniature plateau over the edge of 
which stood the tree tops of the valley. 
[Right in the middle of the deserted tote 
road we left the car, and, leaving coats, 
lunch, extra shells, all, walked off across 
the hilltop. Through a grove of long-leafed 
pines we went into the valley and worked 

61 



Sandhills Sketches 

forward, skirting the edge of thick growth 
that marked the course of the winding 
stream. "Bob'' scoured the hilltop. "Dot'' 
and "Sport" hunted carefully along close to 
the swamp thickets. "Bess" beat up and 
doTVTi the southern side of the hill just un- 
der the brow. 

" *Bess' shore does know what t' hunt fo' 
ah covey on ah cold mawnin', don't she" — 
and the words had hardly slipped lazily 
from the Capt'n's lips before she came to 
a stiff point. A high, shrill whistle and the 
other dogs came and backed. We walked 
in; the birds flushed; and the sport began. 
On up over the crest of the hill, hunting 
the scattered singles. "Steady thar, you 
*Bob' !" The young dog had found one and 
was trembling with suppressed eagerness. 
Before we could get to him, "Sport" was 
pointing another bird over to the left, and, 
as we watched, both "Dot" and "Bess'^ 
suddenly froze stiff on points. "Ah swear ! 
all fo' o' 'em on points on singles." We 
separated and flushed our birds at the same 
moment. Whur-r-r-r, whur-r-r-r-r, whur-r- 
r-r-r-r! To the right, the left, on in front 
scattered quail got up on all sides of us. 

62 



Sandhills Sketches 

"Bess'^ broke excitedly, and had to be prop- 
erly reprimanded, and then, a hundred yards 
further on, she redeemed herself by finding 
a second covey. After this we did not hunt 
singles at all. During the day we got up 
twenty-seven coveys, which is a pretty good 
true quail story. 

For a day of good sport anyone in the 
Sandhills will heartily recommend Capt'n 
Evans and his quartet, but the true favorite 
native son of Moore County is a handsome 
blue belton setter owned by Jim MacDou- 
gall. "Prince^' has a pedigree that fairly 
bristles with champions. Both his parents 
were winners at the field trials, and he him- 
self was trained by Armstrong at High 
Point. He is the marvel dog of all the Sand- 
hills. What stories they tell of him on the 
post-office steps and 'round the stove in Mac- 
Dougairs store winter afternoons! From 
Dr. Adams to the youngest black boy who 
hangs about the freight shed, everyone in 
town takes a keen personal pride in that 
dog. Of course, he has pointed dead quail, 
and quail in trees and under logs, and he 
has, as can be proved by half the gold 
watches and every Ingersoll in the town- 
65 



Sandhills Sketches 

sMp, held a point for two hours and sixteen 
minutes — some say seventeen minutes. 

In the midst of his admirers at the store 
the handsome rascal is as bored as a young 
prig back in his home town after his first 
term at the University, but in the field he 
is keen sportsmanship personified. With 
his free open stride, he covers the country, 
head and tail up, his nose thrust into the 
air, sniffing first one side and now the other, 
eager to catch the first faint suggestion of 
the scent of the little brown birds. A short 
whistle and he stops in his tracks. A wave 
of the hand and he is off again in the op- 
posite direction, quartering the ground per- 
fectly. He stops dead on a point. Still as 
a statue he seems, but as you walk closer 
you see that he trembles with suppressed 
excitement, every muscle taut, every nerve 
straining, he stands there, a perfect picture. 
Flush the birds and at the command he will 
retrieve, going quickly and surely to each 
dead quail and returning it without so 
much as a feather dampened. He is a 
splendid dog wonderfully broken. 

We all applaud the stiff antics of a high 
school trained horse and wax enthusiastic 

64 







ill,:. ■^■"Sfe'f^i 











Sandhills Sketches 

over the trick of the lion tamer^s tawny 
pupil, but not one in fifty of us ever tMnks 
that the quail dog displays intelligence and 
training far beyond these. He ranges over 
the country as free as the winter wind, but 
always under perfect control. No bit guides 
him, yet he turns right or left at the wave 
of a hand. No snapping whip compels obe- 
dience, but he minds the call of a whistle 
promptly and cheerfully. If a savage tiger 
or a docile brown cow could be trained thus, 
scientific gentlemen would investigate the 
case in the interest of animal psychology. 
It would be one of the marvels of the world, 
but nobody thinks it at all "abnormal" in a 
setter or a pointer. Thousands of rollicking 
puppies learn the trick each year. 

How much more wonderful even is the 
subversion of the bird dog's strongest in- 
stincts to the will of his master ! We have 
seized upon that momentary pause that pre- 
cedes the wild dog's spring at his prey and 
developed it into the pointing habit, a habit 
that, through generations of painstaking 
training and selective breeding, has become 
stronger than the instinct to pounce upon 
the birds. What self-control is demanded 

65 



Sandhills Sketches 

to stand staunch when the birds flush right 
under your nose ! How many men have the 
firm hold on their passions that the quail 
dog displays when he picks up a dead bird 
in his mouth and returns it gently to his 
master? ^'The dog," Maeterlinck has said, 
"is the only animal that is the friend of 
man.'^ The bird dog has gone even farther : 
he is the friend and the partner of man as 
well. He curbs his strongest instincts for 
the good of the game that he and his 
Master play together. His is the proud joy 
of humble service. 

Half the si>ort of quail shooting lies in 
working and watching the dogs. All day 
long the quail shooter has before him a liv- 
ing example of strength, of perseverance, of 
good faith, of self-restraint, the very cardi- 
nal virtues of good sportsmanship. It is 
a spiritual experience that is good for any 
man. And we love our four-footed partner 
in sport not alone because he is a splendid 
animal, good to look at, intelligent, and 
faithful ; not only because he shows us good 
sport ; but also because his own good sport- 
manship appeals to the best sportsmanship 
in ourselves. 

66 



The Clay Birds 

WE sat round a blazing pine-knot fire 
in the big hotel's cozy smoking room, 
and every man in the group, except the 
Banker, had been hobby-horse riding. Each 
had enjoyed a glorious day in the outdoors, 
pursuing his favorite sport. Each, tired 
with that delicious, restful tiredness that 
comes like a benison at the close of every 
day of keen sport, luxuriated in his deep 
leather chair. The fresh, pine-scented winds 
had swept the cobwebs from our brains, and, 
as the fire snapped and crackled, the bright 
flashes of friendly repartee, witty thrust 
and ready parry, flew round the circle. 

The Collegian and his Father had started 
it by holding, as golfers are so very apt to 
do, a post mortem over their afternoon 
round. This led the Editor, who had 
slipped away from the impatient telephone 
and the ever-hungry presses for a couple 
of weeks' winter vacation, to make some 

67 



Sandhills Sketches 

caustic comparisons between golf and his 
favorite tennis. But casualties on this liard 
and long-fought battlefield were tactfully 
avoided by the Manufacturer, who boldly 
asserted that both these good sports paled 
into utter insignificance before the most 
glorious sport of quail-shooting. He proved 
it too^ — ^to his own complete satisfaction — 
and then the polo-player championed his 
hobby, and was followed very naturally by 
a hard-riding fox-hunter. Then we had 
another round of golf, and so back again 
to the wide-ranging bird-dogs and the whirl- 
ing quail coveys. 

"I wonder,'^ put in the Banker, "if you 
gentlemen have read a poem of Whitcomb 
Kiley's called ^His Favorite Fruit?' It's 
a little dialect sketch in which some Hoosier 
farmers, gathered 'round the iron stove in 
a little cross-roads grocery, discuss their 
favorite fruits. Each one holds out for his 
own personal choice — ^the apple, the peach, 
the pear, the watermelon — and slanders un- 
mercifully the taste of the last speaker. 
But all the time the teller of this story 
^chaws on an' sez nawthin'.' Finally one 
of the party asks him point blank, ^Jim, 

68 



Sandhills Sketches 

what's yourn fav'rite fruit?' He chaws on 
fer quite a spell an' then lie sez, slow an' 
solemn-like, 'Terbaccer,' an' you oughter 
heard 'em roar." 

"You," continued the Banker, when the 
laugh had subsided, "have been each slan- 
dering the other's favorite sport, while I 
have been ^chawin' on an' saying nawthin',' 
and I wonder who of you will laugh at me 
and my favorite sport as at the Hoosier 
farmer whose favorite fruit was tobacco." 

"Speaking for myself," remarked the Edi- 
tor, "I laugh at no sport except tiddle-de- 
winks." 

"How a/bout ping-pong?" asked the Col- 
legian. 

"That must have been before your day — 
did you ever play it?" 

"No, thank Heaven, but " 

"Ah, I thought not. If you had, you'd 
not laugh at it, either," and the Editor 
chuckled to himself reminiscently. 

"I came down here to Pinehurst," con- 
tinued the Banker, "to get some good trap- 
shooting." 

"Huh!" — a short, sarcastic "Huh!" — 
came from the depths of the chair where the 

69 



Sandhills Sketches 

Manufacturer, after a long day tramping 
over tlie Sandhills behind his brace of 
pointers, was resting. 

"I expected just that from you, Charlie," 
laughed the Banker. "Simply *huh!' and 
nothing more can express your wonder and 
contempt. For the life of you, you cannot 
understand why on earth a supposedly sen- 
sible man should come down here into the 
very heart of one of the best quail counties 
in North Carolina to smash clay birds at the 
trap, can you?'' The Manufacturer shook 
his head vigorously. "Well," continued the 
Banker again, "I felt just as you do a couple 
of years ago. I followed your favorite sport 
too many years to start slandering it now. 
I used to come down here quail-shooting 
before you were out of school, but I can 
tell you that trap-shooting is good sport, 
too. You are a Doubting Thomas, but why 
don't you try it sometime? It's not so sim- 
ple as it looks." 

Before we broke up an hour later, we had 
made an appointment to visit the traps next 
morning to witness the Banker's promised 
conversion of the Manufacturer into a trap- 
shooter. None of us will ever forget that 

70 



Sandhills Sketches 

skeptic^s immense surprise when lie found 
the little clay birds so very "gamey" that he 
only broke nine out of his first string of 
twenty-five. It was a hard jolt to his pride, 
but he stuck out his jaw, tucked his gun 
under his cheek, and tackled another string. 
He did better later, and soon he got into 
the habit of joining the little parties at the 
squatty little gun clubhouse in the center of 
the big open field over against the great red 
barns of the model dairy. He came sheep- 
ishly at first, but later with brazen effront- 
ery. In the end, he decided to stay over a 
week longer than he had planned, just to 
enter in the Mid- Winter Handicap Tourna- 
ment the last of January. 

In no very strict historical sense can the 
adjective "new" be fairly applied to trap- 
shooting, and yet there is a newness in the 
recent vogue of the sport. The live, tame 
pigeon, thrown into the air, frightened and 
confused, from a collapsible wooden cage, 
has long since been supplanted by a little 
clay disc, hurled with lightning speed from 
a steel spring trap. This was the starting 
point of the development of trap-shooting 
as we know it in America today, and this 

71 



Sandhills Sketches 

took place years ago. It is a harder, more 
sporty thing to smash a whizzing clay bird 
to smithereens than to knock down a fright- 
ened tame pigeon, and it is more humane. 
This change of targets put a keen zest into 
trap-shooting and took out a bitter reproach. 
But till recently, the growth of trap-shoot- 
ing has been slow. In four short years, 
however, the number of active trap-shooters 
has increased fourfold; from about 100,000 
to about 425,000. During the same period 
trap-shooting clubs have increased from 
1,000 to 4,000, and it is estimated that about 
500,000,000 clay pigeons are thrown into 
the air each year at the shooter's sharp com- 
mand, "Pull!'' In, one short Presidental 
term, trap-shooting has sprung forward 
from a low place among the so-called minor 
sports to occupy a position second only to 
baseball in the number of its devotees. We 
are not apt to appreciate what this really 
means without the help of the cold figures 
above. 

There is a world of difference in being a 
"rooter" and in being a "player," and the 
one simple little fact that each trap-shooter 
is a player himself, or herself, is just what 

72 




SNOW IN THE SANDHILLS 




OLD SLAVE QUARTERS 




YOHANNAHAS FERRY 



Sandhills Sketches 

gives the sport its strongest grip upon the 
interest of its followers. That tense mo- 
ment of "two out and the bases filled'^ ; the 
jerky, crashing advance of the battling 
human machine carrying a pigskin ball 
down the field toward the goal-posts; the 
rush of the ponies and the hollow click of 
mallet against polo ball — all these tighten 
the muscles and quicken the heart-beat of 
any live sportsman, but, as the psychologist 
says, these are all external stimuli. 

Let the same man — or the same woman, 
for many women shoot at the traps nowa- 
days — step up to the score, tuck his gun 
against his shoulder, brace himself and 
draw a deep breath, glance down the long 
length of blued barrels, and call "Pull!" 
Whizz goes the little black disc, hurtling 
away at a speed that makes the teal and the 
mallard seem lazy laggards. One moment 
of intensely concentrated effort and keen 
enjoyment till the flying saucer is found 
just above the forward sight ; an almost in- 
voluntary sqrf^^'^e of the trigger finger, the 
thralling jum^ the discharge, and puff! — 
the clay target is knocked into a thousand 
bits. 

73 



Sandhills Sketches 

That tremendously concentrated effort of 
finding the speeding disc — you must find 
Mm quick — he will be quite out of range if 
you stop to say quickly — followed by the 
physical climax of the almost simultaneous 
kick of the gun and the shattering of the 
clay target ; these are secrets of the witching 
spell that lures the shooter back and back 
again to the traps. I must confess to a 
thoroughly diabolical delight in knocking 
the clay birds to powder. I do not do it 
always — not even often, but when I do I 
enjoy the keenest pleasure. Other trap- 
shooters confess the same joy. Please, do 
not say anything about dangerous destruc- 
tive tendencies that ought to be rigidly sup- 
pressed, or we shall get into an argument, 
and then I will have to say a lot of things 
about quickness of eye, correlation of senses 
and muscles, and a great deal more that has 
nothing whatever to do with the sport of 
shooting the clay birds. 

Over and above the inherent fascination 
of knocking the flying clay targets into 
powder, the fact that there is no closed sea- 
son on these clay birds and that even a 
little hand trap in any open field will fur- 

74 



Sandhills Sketches 

nish good game anywhere, goes far towards 
making "the sport alluring" the sport uni- 
versal. Nor do the changing seasons at all 
handicap the trap shooter. The clay birds 
are always full grown and they have no 
nesting-time ; they are just as plentiful and 
just as fair sport in November as in May. 
Indeed, when you mount the trap-shooting 
hobby-horse, you can make up your mind to 
settle yourself in the saddle for a long, long 
gallop over all sorts of country and in all 
sorts of weather. 

There seems to be a delicate touch of sar- 
casm in the fact that the most important 
winter trap-shooting tournament should be 
held within a stone's throw of grounds so 
well stocked with quail that they are chosen 
for the running of one of the largest field 
trials. The pick of the blooded setters and 
pointers are tried out for their bird sense 
and hunting ability almost within hearing 
of the guns at the Pinehurst traps. But the 
quail-hunter and the trap-shooter are 
brothers in arms. Often, like the Manufac- 
turer, converted at the Pinehurst traps last 
winter, they are sporting Siamese twins. 
The traps furnish good practice to the field 

75 



Sandhills Sketches 

shooter and good sport when the closed sea- 
son would otherwise keep the gun in its ease. 
There is a curious connection between 
these brother sports. How keenly, at the 
traps, does one miss the tramping over the 
open fields, scrambling up hillsides, fording 
the streams, hopping over the rail fences! 
All the tireless quest of the hunt, that 
strange, primitive, impelling force that de- 
fies physical fatigue and keeps your high 
boots swishing through the coarse, knotted 
crab grass with a long, eager stride from 
daylight to dark ! Most of all, you miss the 
dogs. That to me is the great loss. But 
there is continual shooting to take the place 
of the joys of the open fields, and there is a 
cleaner, keener satisfaction in smashing a 
target than in knocking down a quail; but 
what takes the place of the dogs? Nothing. 
Every shooter loves to shoot — if he says he 
does not, put him down as a hypocrite. No 
man lugs six or eight or ten or even twelve 
pounds of shotgun all day long just for the 
fun of carrying firearms. He likes to shoot. 
He may — and probably does — thoroughly 
enjoy the tramp and the pleasure of watch- 
ing the dogs work, but if he went hunting 

76 



Sandhills Sketches 

for these alone lie would not burden Mmself 
witli a gun. No, the shooter loves to shoot, 
and at the traps he can shoot till his gun 
barrels get red hot. Only a lame shoulder 
and the price of shells need keep him from 
shooting his head off, as the saying is. To 
the man who loves action — -quick action and 
lots of it — this is a charm that the traps 
surely, and the live birds only uncertainly, 
offer. 

But the very kernel of the sport of trap- 
shooting comes in smashing those flying 
discs. However keen the hunting instinct 
there is always just the tinge of regret in 
blotting out the pretty life of little brown 
birds There are times when one feels just 
a bit ashamed of that fierce pleasure of a 
good, clean, quick shot. At the traps one 
can let that pleasure run wild. You can 
grit your teeth and say, "I'm going to paste 
you this time,'' without qualm of conscience. 
You can give rein to the passion for destruc- 
tion without becoming a brute. To do so in 
the field is to degenerate. We hate the 
"game hog," not because he is selfish and 
cruel, but because he is not a man. We 
need the strong, elemental passions, and we 

77 



Sandhills Sketches 

are in danger of becoming super-refined 
jelly-fishes, incapable of doing wrong be- 
cause we are incapable of doing good. It 
takes more courage to attack a lie than to 
storm a trench, more passion for destruction 
to root out a bad habit than to raze a city. 



78 



Through a Jungle to the Old 
South 

THE first man to whom we spoke about 
canoeing down the Lum'bee was not 
encouraging. The water would be too high 
for fishing, and what with whirlpools and 
other dire, vaguely hinted-at dangers he did 
not reckon we would even get to Lumber- 
ton, to say nothing of going all the way 
through to the sea. But our weather-stained 
mail held forth no inducements to return 
North to be buffeted about by a blizzard, 
and our dismal friend^s croakings but 
seemed to us promises of an exciting trip 
and strengthened our determination to go 
— ^to go, we secretly hoped, despite all haz- 
ard. He proved to be a melancholy deceiver ; 
we found excite-ment, but not the kind he 
foretold. The natives know precious little 
about the Lumbee. 

Our first confirmation of this was when 
we discovered that the authority on the 
river is Dr. John Warren Achom, who has 

79 



Sandhills Sketches 

a winter home at Pinebluff. This canoeing 
enthusiast told us much about the river — 
that till three years ago, barring the natives' 
cypress dugouts, the Lumbee had never 
borne a canoe, and that, while he and others 
had been down a hundred and eighty miles, 
no one had ever gone clear through from the 
headwaters to the sea at Georgetown, S. C. 
Here was an additional fillip — we were go- 
ing to blaze the way ! Dr. Achom also ex- 
tended to us the courtesies of the Mid-Win- 
ter Canoe Club, and, thanks to him, we used 
one of the club canoes. He would have 
fitted us out with a complete kit had we 
needed it. 

"It was a misty, moisty morning, and 
cloudy was the weather," when we pushed 
off from Blue's Bridge and started down 
the Lumbee. We, by the way, were two 
men and two dogs, Leonard Chester Free- 
man and I, his setter "Belle" and my Scot- 
tish terrier "Dixie". Snugly stowed away 
in our sixteen foot canoe were a shelter tent, 
blankets and ponchos, duffle bags, two shot- 
guns and a .22 rifle with ammunition, a 
camera, cooking kit and food supplies for a 
week ; a two hundred pound outfit, but there 
are no carrys on the Lumbee. 

80 



/ 



ft 






y < 



f 







Photo iiv h' A h. ■ 

i'.LULS iiRilJC.L, i'iNL KLUFF, N. C, 




FEEDING THE CAPTIVE 




THE BRAVE LADY'S PORTRAIT 



Sandhills Sketches 

Half a dozen strokes and we were round 
a bend. The little clubhouse under the great 
pines had vanished. Faintly, through the 
thickets, Dr. Achorn's cheery voice reached 
us, calling the Indian's ^^Bon Voyage!'' — 
"Good hunting !'' Then, save for the swish 
of the paddles and the buzzing of a couple 
of precocious dragon-flies all was silent. 
Apparently, we were miles from civilization. 
The strange wildness of the Lumbee country 
strikes you at once. It is all a tangled wil- 
derness, wild and rampant. There are no 
stump pastures, such as one meets along 
the banks of the rivers of the North Woods ; 
no clearings with a squatty cabin and a 
field of scraggly corn ; no trace of the hand 
of man. Except for the friends who pur- 
sued us in a motor to give us a farewell 
banquet in, our first night's camp, we saw 
no human being for eighty miles. 

Again unlike the northern rivers, the 
headwaters of the Lumbee do not "chatter 
over stony ways"; they zigzag, silent and 
swift, over a bed of white sand. If every 
river had its own private trade-mark, surely 
"XXX" would be granted to the Lumbee, 
for it twists and turns and loops about till 
beside it the proverbial corkscrew seems to 

81 



Sandhills Sketches 

be the shortest distance betwen two points. 
If you are mathematically inclined, you can 
calculate the curves from this data : we pad- 
dled twenty-eight miles from Blue's Bridge 
to McLeod's Bluff, where we made our first 
camp, and our friends' speedometer showed 
they had covered just six miles over the road 
between these two points. 

There are no rapids or falls in the upper 
Lumbee, but the water glides along at a 
merry rate, scooting round the bends — "cow 
faces" the natives call them — ^in a way that, 
till you get just the knack of cutting the 
corners, is quite disconcerting. Every once 
in a while, which may mean every three 
miles or every thirteen, we came to what 
the natives are pleased to call bluffs, rises 
of ground that stand, dry and sheltered, a 
couple of feet above the swirling high water. 
Between these bluffs the river is literally 
thankless. The flood flows round and 
through the trees, a floating forest not a 
swamp, for there is no marshy ground and 
few reeds or water grasses. On the entire 
trip we never slapped at a mosquito or a 
fly. During the hot summers, this tangled 
jungle must teem with them, but from Sep- 

82 



Sandhills Sketches 

tember to May, though the weather is mild 
enough, they vanish completely. 

As it slips quietly to the sea, the Lumbee 
passes through three distinct phases, each 
different, each with a charm all its own. 
During the first stage, the hundred and 
thirty miles from the headwaters to Lum- 
berton, the river winds its way through the 
Sandhills. Here the bottom land is heavily 
timbered, but it is hard country to lumber, 
and the woods are almost virgin forest. 
During the cold weather the swirling high 
water, and in the summer the noxious ma- 
laria, have kept the lumberman and his 
swinging axe out of the Lumbee woods, and 
the country is a great natural game pre- 
serve. Giant long-leafed pines dominate the 
thickets. These great trees shoot straight 
up fifty or seventy^five feet, their heads 
crowned by their long needles and huge 
cones, as the palms are crowned. Beneath 
are great dark clumps of mountain laurel, 
glossy bluegums, and tall bushes of bright 
holly all dotted with scarlet berries. Here 
and there the strained and twisted branches 
of a black-jack, that curious dwarf oak that 
seems to have been racked by some terrible 
torture, stand stark and bold among the 

83 



Sandhills Sketches 

leaves of its fellows, for even in December, 
tlie Lumbee woods are brigbt and green. 

What capital places for a snug camp the 
little bluffs are — dry and sandy, sheltered 
by tbe evergreens, and stocked with great 
stores of the best fire-wood in all the world. 
Those dry pine sticks, saturated with rosin 
and tar, crackle at a single match's provo- 
cation into a bright flame. Some of these 
Lum'bee camps of ours cling in my memory 
as the most glorious camps I have known. 
I can hear now the happy gurgle of the river 
and the swishing whispers of the wind in 
the pines. The pungent incense of our snap- 
ping fire, mixed with the fragrance of the 
pines and damp, cool, woodsy smell of the 
river bank even now fills my nostrils. 

From the very first we paddled one at a 
time, one hour on and one hour off ; and oh, 
how much more quickly passed the "sab- 
batical hour," when you lolled in the bow, 
than the "paddlatical hour" in the stern. 
This trip ruthlessly destroyed all my faith 
in copybook maxims about toil making the 
hours pass quickly. 

We had left Blue's Bridge but a few mo- 
ments when we came suddenly upon a great 
colony of blue herons, giants of the race, 

84 



Sandhills Sketches 

standing over five feet. Disturbed at our 
boorisL. intrusion upon their domestic af- 
fairs, the great, grey birds flapped labor- 
iously up from their crude nests in the tree- 
tops. They rise as painfully as a gouty 
old man, but once fairly underway they sail 
gracefully in huge arcs. We grew to know 
them well before our trip was over, for they 
and the buzzards are both plentiful. For 
their beauty they are protected the year 
round, and the law, for the utilitarian rea- 
son that they act as public scavengers, is 
equally kind to the buzzards, who are tame 
to the point of familiarity. One battered 
old fellow, whose wings and tail lacked sev- 
eral feathers, took a keen, morbid interest 
in us. Soaring just behind us, watching 
with his wicked, hungry eyes, he followed 
us all one morning, but he finally convinced 
himself that we were going to get through 
all right, and disgusted, he gave up the 
chase. 

In the Lumbee woods are many wild tur- 
keys, and during the fall and early winter, 
before the water has risen so high, if one 
has a still paddle, he can often slip round 
a bend and surprise a stately old gobbler 
and his hens feeding on the bank. 'Coons 

85 



Sandhills Sketches 

and 'possums — African pork — are also plen- 
tiful. Often a slim brown mink slips sil- 
ently off a log, and sometimes a lusty otter 
streaks across the stream, leaving a wake 
like a miniature powder boat. 

The middle of the third afternoon, w^hile 
I dozed in the bow. Freeman shot us through 
a narrow strip where a fallen tree had all 
but dammed the stream. As we skinned 
skilfully betw^een the bank and the branches, 
a most unmistakably hog-like grunt woke 
me thoroughly, and Freeman, with a couple 
of vigorous strokes, brought us about and 
headed up stream. Several times we had 
come up with wdld hogs, great porkers who 
have taken the back-to-nature call too ser- 
iously. Years ago — no one knows when — 
they forsook the pen with its three square 
meals a day to roam the woods in search of 
uncertain livelihood. Nomadic life has 
made them lean and gaunt, and armed them 
with stubby tusks that stick wickedly 
through their lips. We had some pot shots 
at these tough customers, but they had al- 
w^ays rushed away through the flooded 
woods where pursuit was impossible. We 
were therefore mightily surprised to find, 
when Freeman paddled us back, a great 

86 



Sandhills Sketches 

three-liundred pounder, black as the ace of 
spades and ugly as sin, who stood ground 
on a little ribbon of land between the river 
and the back waters. Cautiously we ap- 
proached, I in the bow with gun ready 
waiting for the splashing rush to cover, 
Freeman paddling and trying to quiet the 
dogs who were most forcefully expressing 
their opinions on the subject of wild hogs. 
In vain did we wait for the snort and the 
splashing rush to cover, and, when almost 
on top of her, we discovered the reason for 
her determined stand. A volley of wild 
squeals greeted us. We had found a sow 
with twelve day-old piggies. I landed, and 
"Uff er — r — runt !" she bowled at me. I 
stuck my gun barrel in her face and she 
stopped, grunting and chopping her short, 
thick tusks. Freeman, having tied the dogs 
to the canoe braces, joined me and staved 
off her bold attacks while I snapped the 
brave lady's picture. Then, after a deal of 
maneuvring, we kidnapped one of her off- 
spring. I managed to get a youngster on a 
paddle and flipped him like a pancake over 
to Freeman, who deposited him unceremon- 
iously in the canoe. Off we pushed, de- 

87 



Sandhills Sketches 

lighted witli visions of roast pigling, and 
tlie old lady gave us a parting rush. 

Our little piggie was, barring nothing, 
the most homely beastie ever seen. He was 
black and shiney, like a shaved and varn- 
ished puppy, with a big, shapeless wedge of 
a head, topped off with enormous, flappy 
ears. He squealed, and squawked, and 
snorted, and grunted in every key, and every 
waking minute he kept up his racket. But 
his comical antics and unfailing good nature 
won our hearts. We did not enjoy roast 
pig, and since he did not prove to be a good 
canoeist, we sold him, three days later, for 
the munificent sum of "two bits." His new 
owner carried him off to join him to a fam- 
ily of tame pigs in his pens. 

Just above Alma (Alma is a puffing saw 
mill surrounded by dirty, dilapidated negro 
shacks) , we passed under Gilchrist^s Bridge, 
where Sherman's army, marching north 
after taking Charleston, crossed the river. 
Just below Alma is the reservation of the 
Croatan Indians, the mysterious blue-eyed 
race descended, so it is said, from Sir Walter 
Ealeigh's Lost Colony, which was planted 
on Roanoke Island in 1587 and disappeared 
as completely as if swallowed by the earth. 

88 









■ft ' ^ .- • 






5- 



A PEE DEE PLANTATION 




■DRAM TREES" 




INDIGO MAKERS HALL, GEORGETOWN, S. C. 



Sandhills Sketches 

We met several of these Indians — short, 
thick-set fellows with yellow skins and wide- 
set, blue eyes — ^and found them so engrossed 
in planting cotton that it was hard to be- 
lieve they were for years a thorn in the side 
of the Grovernment and the army. 

Nearing Lumberton, a busy little town 
with an attractive Confederate Monument, 
all strangely like a New England village 
with its shaft "To our Soldiers and Sailors,'^ 
the country began to change. We were leav- 
ing the long-leafed pines of the Sandhills. 
Cypress became more and more common, 
and occasionally we spied a bunch of Span- 
ish moss swaying in the branches overhead. 
Just above Lumberton the river twists it- 
self all into knots and then straightens out, 
so the last couple of miles into the town are 
straight as a canal, between banks that rise 
steeply from each side of the swift, deep 
stream. 

We created a sensation in Lumberton. 
Khaki clad, in flannel shirts, much in need 
of the barber^s services, traveling in a 
strange craft whose frailty aroused great 
admiration of our supposed courage, and 
accompanied by two dogs and a young wild 
pig — ^it is small wonder we disembarked 

89 



Sandhills Sketches 

amid a crowd tliat thouglit we were crazy, 
but was too polite to say so. The sole and 
only hotel, so we discovered, had been torn 
down to make room for a bank, but w^e 
found a genial savior in an energetic gentle- 
man who combines the various duties of 
proprietor of the movies, political boss, re- 
porter for the local paper, and last, but not 
least, husband of the landlady of "th' best 
eatin'-house in town.'' Here we could eat, 
and our factotum found us a place to sleep 
with one of his neighbors. 

Below Lumberton, which we left next 
morning after stocking our larder and pur- 
chasing a nursing-bottle for piggie, we came 
fairly to the second stage of the river. The 
woods of the Sandhills had vanished; we 
were in a semi-tropical jungle. Bottle-neck 
cypress rose, like the columns of a catherdal, 
right out of the water. When they rise in 
mid-stream, the lumbermen recognize such 
a phenomenon of Nature by calling them 
"dram trees" and claiming a drink when the 
logs are safely by. There are parts of the 
river where, if this jovial custom is strictly 
followed, it must take a remarkably hard 
head to bring the lumher to the mill. The 
undergrowth is a tangle of giant ferns and 

90 



Sandhills Sketches 

cactus-like palms, all snarled up with twin- 
ing creepers. Overhead every crotch in the 
trees is a jardiniere of ferns, and every 
branch is coated with lichens, and festooned 
with Spanish moss and vines. Here is fas- 
cinating canoeing. The current slips along 
merrily between the banks, and one can 
whirl along almost without dipping the 
paddle in the water. In other places, the 
water sprawls out through the cypress jun- 
Igle and there is no more current than in a 
bath-tub. Chattering black birds in whole 
colonies scolded us roundly ; red and yellow 
wood-peckers played tag up and down the 
tree trunks; scarlet tanagers and sapphire 
kingfishers darted down the stream before 
us, while humming-birds, like great be- 
jewelled moths, hovered about our canoe. 
The trees had burst into leaf as if by magic, 
and the delicate greens of their new foliage 
made a delightful setting against which to 
show off the brilliant colors of the bright 
birds. We had canoed right into the heart 
of Fairyland at the first of a glorious spring. 
Who would believe that it was the first of 
March and that a blizzard was throttling 
the North? 

Soon we left this Fairyland and came to 

91 



Sandhills Sketches 

the great Buzzard Flats, the stillest, weird- 
est waters one ever canoed. After thread- 
ing our waj between the decaying bastions 
of the Old State Line Bridge, once a famous 
thoroughfare, now but a mark to tell the 
lumbermen they have passed from North to 
South Carolina, we had slipped with the 
Lumbee into the waters of the Little Pee 
Dee. They slide together these two great 
rivers and except that the banks are now 
a hundred yards from side to side one would 
hardly know the change. But it is different 
when the Little Pee Dee joins the Great 
Pee Dee. Here the rush of the big river's 
muddy floods backs up the slower waters 
of the smaller river. They sprawl over the 
flat country into a great labyrinth of lakes 
and lagoons, the famous Buzzard Flats of 
the Pee Dee. It was a cool, still, grey after- 
noon when we paddled through this strange 
place. The sky stretched steely grey above 
us, and on all sides the still water reached 
away like great sheets of ground glass. The 
great, grey cypress, all hung with grey 
Spanish moss, rose in straight colonnades. 
Save for the swish-swish of the paddles and 
the clunk-a-plunk of innumerable turtles 
which dropped dully into the water at our 

92 



8a?idhills Sketches 

coining, all was still as the tomb. Even the 
birds added to the eerie spell ; big blue heron 
swinging in lazy circles ; grey cranes streak- 
ing across the sky; buzzards hanging all 
but motionless far overhead ; and owls bolt- 
ing away in their senseless flight. 

But with all their witching spell these 
Flats are a capital place in which to get 
lo-st. Forewarned, we kept to the right 
when in doubt, for the Great Pee Dee comes 
in on the right side. All afternoon we pad- 
dled through these bewitched lagoons, and 
the sun, a great, hazy red ball, was just 
sinking when the rush of yellow water told 
us we were in the Great Pee Dee. We both 
heaved a sigh of relief, and then laughed at 
each other. Neither had spoken of it, but 
we had both been contemplating the pros- 
pect of a chilly night, cold and without a 
warm supper, spent in the canoe among the 
misty reaches of water and cypress. 

The river's swift current carried us along 
without paddling and for half an hour we 
idly watched the rearguard of the great 
duck army hurrying northwards from their 
winter quarters among the rice islands at 
the mouth of the Great Pee Dee. They 
came as if flung from catapults, flying high, 

93 



Sandhills Sketches 

singly, in couples, trios, and little flocks of 
five or six. Often in the evening stillness 
we could hear the whr-r-r-r-r of their strong 
wings long before they would burst out of 
the twilight. Then a black streak would be 
draTVTL against the pink, western sky, and 
be lost in the hazy distance over the Buz- 
zard Flats. We were too late for duck 
shooting, but just in time for the run of 
spring shad, and we drifted by two row- 
boats in which some singing darkies toiled 
with a giant's net loaded with the fish that 
soon would be commanding a fancy price in 
the Northern markets. 

That night we camped our last camp on 
the river. High up on the right bank we 
pitched our tent under a spreading live oak, 
and we sat silently smoking till our fire had 
died to a handful of glowing embers. To- 
morrow we would be back in the world of 
today again, the bustling, busy world of 
men ; but tonight we were still in the great, 
wild woods, close to the heart of Mother 
Earth. A chugging little flat-bottomed 
steamer awoke us in the morning. She 
puffed laboriously up stream, and threat- 
ened to soon tire of being overloaded with 
bulging cotton bales, and drop quietly to 

94: 



Sandhills Sketches 

the river bottom. We made a late start, 
and slipped reluctantly by tbe banks of 
magnolias, wild honeysuckle, and yellow 
jasmines. Here was the third stage of the 
trip. We had come out of the jungle into 
a bit of the Old South, a bit curiously pre- 
served from the hard blows of Fate. 

Behind the magnolias we caught glimpses 
of great colonial mansions, many of them 
in ruins, others we knew in the hands of 
strangers, for the rice islands across the 
river are now all wild and untilled. These 
rice islands have a strange history. ^Way 
back in Colonial days they were given over 
to indigo culture, and in Georgetown Indigo 
Growers' Hall, an impressive building, still 
bears silent testimony to the importance of 
the industry that was destroyed by better 
communication with the East. During the 
Revolution, these same islands sheltered 
Marion, the Bwamp Fox, and his ragged 
patriots, and Yohahanna's Ferry is still 
pointed out as their favorite crossing place 
to and from their raids on the British forces. 
Later these islands became huge rice plan- 
tations, accounted the most valuable land 
in the South and supporting the flower of 
southern chivalry. The Civil War laid 

95 



Sandhills Sketches 

waste this gardenland, but the rice ena;bled 
it to regain a shadow of its former great- 
ness, till, twenty years ago, it was a fourth 
time ruined by the discovery that rice could 
be more economically grown in Texas. 

Warm-hearted friends greeted us with 
open hospitality in this country, and when 
we reached Georgetown, after ten glorious 
days on the river, we were feted as if we 
had discovered both Poles and been on a 
little side trip to the moon. 

It took us ten days to follow the winding 
Lumbee down to the ocean. If one wishes 
to break our record it will not be a hard 
task, for we went along at a go-as-you- 
please pace. Anyone who has only canoed in 
the North will find curious things and new 
delights along this little-known stream. Do 
not believe it, if some veteran canoeist says 
"muddy water" to you. The last forty miles 
are muddy water, but, even at flood-time, the 
Lumbee and the Little Pee Dee twisting 
through the Sandhills are clear, or at most 
stained with juniper. Remember, too, that 
they glide between the green banks when 
northern streams are frozen hard. January 
in North Carolina is amazingly like October 
in Maine or Wisconsin. The Lumbee is the 
canoeist's great excuse to dodge Winter. 



